For all its tall claims of edge and darkness in the title, Rudra is a rather bland, blah, posturing, personality-less take on a sinister series, observes Sukanya Verma.
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
Cirkus is boring and puerile, notes Sukanya Verma.
Our political history tells us this has never worked. A united Opposition does work in some specific, limited situations, especially in the states. But never as some brilliant pan-national collection of diverse interests with no ideological or political core, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'It did not start as a Hindutva slogan.' 'It started to tease the TMC and slowly it got internalised and the BJP started countering with Jai Shri Ram slogans because Mamata was getting provoked.'
'...despite not being ideologically aligned with a vast section of the people of the north east.' 'But the results in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya show that no party, including the BJP, can say that it has really done well.'
At many places, where the voters had entered booths before 6 pm and were standing in queues, they were allowed to cast their votes.
'Nobody will be saved if you don't stop this ideological and political-strategic bulldozer.'
Fifty years ago today, December 25, 1972, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, one of the titans of India's freedom struggle, passed into the ages. Kalki Krishnamurthy, who penned the Tamil classic Ponniyin Selvan among numerous other novels, describes his first glimpse of the man who would become an august national leader and his cherished role model.
'Modi's charisma and appeal is unparalleled.' 'Yogi has his own appeal and people connect.' 'He is seen as trustworthy, hardworking and honest.' 'People feel that these qualities are both common to Yogi and Modi.'
Muthalik said the dress code is introduced so that there is no display of upper and lower caste or religious identities.
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of the United States Congress, delivered on Thursday.
'Instead of developing the capacity, capability and strength to fight our external enemies, we are turning our own people against each other.'
What makes Wonder Women brilliant is the breeziness of the events and issues it tackles without delving on it too much or surrendering to it completely, observes Divya Nair. Wonder Women Review
Sharad Pawar claims he is not in a position to name the organisations behind the violence at Bhima Koregaon, 'though active role of right-wing forces behind the violence cannot be ruled out.'
Nitish Kumar, once seen as a potential rival to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, broke ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance coalition on Tuesday to stake claim as head of the rival 'Mahagathbandhan' (Grand Alliance) to be the chief minister of Bihar for the eighth time.
The government sources said the bill incorporates various electoral reforms which have been discussed for a long time.
Chief Minister Stalin seems to have drawn a line between his personal beliefs and those of others in the family, beginning with wife Durga Stalin, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'My parents were there to see me enrol as a lawyer. From afar itself, I could see tears in their eyes.' 'Three days after, I appeared in court for my first case, and my father was there to see me. He had tears in his eyes.' 'And even before I completed two months as an advocate, I won a case!'
The Supreme Court on Thursday said women, other than cisgender women, may also require access to safe medical termination of pregnancies, while expanding the scope of the MTP Act to include unmarried women with 20-24 weeks pregnancy for abortion.
'The BJP is not the party it was 10 years ago. It has changed. It is emerging like the Congress.' 'Sometimes, I feel the BJP has taken the Congress' space.' 'Its politics is also resembling the Congress.'
Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is a masterpiece, and like most masterpieces of the cinema, it's a great act of folly, observes Sreehari Nair.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress overcame the might of the BJP and is all set to be CM for a third term.
If it doesn't do that, what Uddhav Thackeray postpones addressing today will be there on the table to confront, for whoever anchors the Sena in the years ahead, observes Shyam G Menon.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
The issue of denial of permission to Mansiya V P to perform Bharatanatyam at Koodalmanikyam temple, Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district has become a matter of debate in the state.
'Segregation suits the BJP at the moment. It will not suit them forever.'
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli also issued notice on the plea filed by the Centre seeking transfer of the case from the high court to the apex court which had earlier referred to the similar case for adjudication to a five-judge Constitution bench.
Social media platforms Facebook, Google and Twitter on Thursday told the Delhi high court that they have blocked or taken down all the links which incorrectly showed a deceased woman's photo as that of the Hathras rape victim.
'A class antagonism of rich versus poor took the colouring of a communal confrontation,' says Sunil Sethi.
'Economic issues do not matter during elections; it is the emotional connect that helps swing votes.'
The Karnataka high court, which dismissed the batch of petitions by some Muslim girl students from Udupi seeking permission to wear the hijab inside classrooms, said there was no material placed on record to prima facie show that wearing the headscarf was an essential religious practice.
Love Hostel stays focused on the murky present and revelling in its increasingly dark outcome. Despite the reach of social media and technology, this isn't the cushy, liberal India of mainstream culture. It's a lawless, ruthless, endless minefield where uncertainty and bigotry go hand in hand and patriarchy is a foregone conclusion, observes Sukanya Verma.
'Section 153A is not meant to protect fragile sentiments of the majority Hindu community who choose to get offended by slogans celebrating the success of the Pakistani cricket team.'
Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani, who was arrested by Assam police from the western state for a purported tweet, was on Thursday remanded to three days police custody by a court in Kokrajhar in the north eastern state.
Seventy-one parliamentary constituencies spread across nine states voted in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections.
'My ethnicity has been my biggest struggle in the industry, a setback in getting me work.'
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 is a silly scary movie that knows it is a silly scary movie, observes Sukanya Verma.
